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Fallen 3rd ID sergeant honored at Warriors Walk

Corey Dickstein/Savannah Morning News Carol Wittman, with her husband Duane Wittman, becomes emotional Thursday morning as she views the Eastern redbud tree planted along Fort Stewart's Warriors Walk in honor of her late son Sgt. Aaron Wittman, who died Jan. 10 while on patrol in Khogyani District, Afghanistan.

Corey Dickstein/Savannah Morning News Army Staff Sgt. Francisco Abreu hands Carol Wittman the camouflage-patterned cloth that covered the plaque at the base of an Eastern redbud tree dedicated to her son Army Sgt. Aaron Wittman Thursday as her husband Duane Wittmas looks on. Sgt. Wittman, of the 3rd Infantry Division, was serving his second combat deployment to Afghanistan when he was killed during combat operations Jan. 10.

Corey Dickstein/Savannah Morning News Army Staff Sgt. Francisco Abreu Thursday morning removes the camoflauge cloth that covered the plaque at the base of the newly planted Eastern redbud tree planted in honor of fallen 28-year-old 3rd Infantry Division soldier Sgt. Aaron Wittman. Wittman, who was killed while on patrol in Afghanistan Jan. 10, was the 445th soldier to be honored with a tree along Warriors Walk.

Corey Dickstein/Savannah Morning News Carol and Duane Wittman walk away from the memorial Eastern redbud tree dedicated Thursday morning to their son Army Sgt. Aaron Wittman, who was killed in Afghanistan in January while serving his second combat deployment.

Corey Dickstein/Savannah Morning News A 3rd Infantry Division luitenant colonel spends a moment with the tree dedicated Thursday to Army Sgt. Aaron Wittman who was killed by enemey forces Jan. 10 while on mounted patrol in Afghanistan.

Sgt. Aaron Wittman

While still in college, Aaron Wittman volunteered to join a deploying South Carolina Army National Guard unit for a yearlong combat tour in Afghanistan.

Two years later, after graduating from The Citadel in Charleston, S.C., Wittman turned down a commission into the Army’s officer corps, choosing instead to enlist as an infantryman.

That was just the kind of man he was, those who knew him best explained.

Eventually, his immense patriotism and his insistence of putting others before himself may have cost him his life, Wittman’s father said Thursday morning at Fort Stewart, where the fallen sergeant’s family, friends and Army comrades gathered to dedicate an Eastern redbud tree — the 445th planted along Warriors Walk since 2003 — to his memory at the installation’s memorial grove.

“He loved being a soldier,” Duane Wittman said. “Unfortunately, he died doing what he thought was best for everybody else.”

Two months into a nine-month rotation with the 3rd Battalion, 69th Armor Regiment of the 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team, the 28-year-old Wittman was killed during a firefight with enemy forces in Afghanistan’s Nangarhar Province on Jan. 10. He was the first American service member killed supporting Operation Enduring Freedom in 2013.

“There are soldiers here today that were in the vehicle with him, and they came back alive, and I know in my heart that they came back because he did what he did very well,” Duane Wittman said.

The confident young noncommissioned officer seemed almost destined to serve in the U.S. military.

Both of his parents were soldiers, his sister served in the Navy, and his brother is currently a Marine captain.

Still, Aaron Wittman was never pushed toward the military, his mother Carol said. To him, it was simply a calling to something bigger than himself.

“We thought (our children) should choose their own path,” Carol Wittman said. “I believe (the military) was within them. It’s just something they all felt needed to be done.”

Their children’s decisions to serve made Carol and Duane Wittman immensely proud, something that hasn’t wavered even since learning of Aaron’s death and eventually burying him earlier this month at Arlington National Cemetery.

“I couldn’t be prouder; there’s no way,” Duane Wittman said. “Let me tell you, he was just a great guy — wonderful. He could have done anything he wanted, and he loved it. He loved the Army and this country.”

And although he never wanted his parents to see his name among those soldiers honored at Warriors Walk, Aaron Wittman would have loved the support the Fort Stewart community — and other across the nation — showed his family, Carol Wittman said.

“Under the circumstances, I came here thinking what a wonderful way to honor not only Aaron but all the others who have fallen,” she said. “It helps families and friends to process our loss.

“I know that Aaron would be humbled by all this attention, and yet, I believe he would have been honored in the same way.”